LESSON PLAN OUTLINE
JMU Elementary Education Program
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Stacey Diapoulis
Mrs. Dolfi, Riverheads Elementary School
March 20, 2013
A. TITLE OF LESSON: Comprehension Mini Lesson: Superdog: The Heart of a Hero By:
Caralyn and Mark Buehner
B. CONTEXT OF LESSON
Although comprehension begins with processing individual words, it is much
more than reading and understanding individual words. It is comprehending those words
in relation to one another within sentences, and then combining across sentences and
paragraphs to construct high-order meaning. Teaching how to comprehend is different
from assessing whether a student comprehends. A comprehension lesson needs to include
pre-/during/and post-reading strategies to address skills good comprehenders need to
know. In this lesson, I will read “Superdog: The Heart of a Hero,” by: Caralyn and Mark
Buehner. This story is a fiction book about Dexter, a little dog with big dreams! He
dreams of being a super hero and always being able to help those in need. He trains
himself to be the best SuperDog ever. This book can demonstrate determination, spirit,
and kindness to students and captures their attention through the vibrant illustrations.
C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand
Know
Do
The students will understand
the text structure and
meaning of the book.
The students will know all
components to the story
including the setting,
purpose, main idea,
vocabulary, sequencing, etc.
The students will be able to
fill out their story map as the
story is being read aloud, and
participate in a post reading
question session.
D. ASSESSING LEARNING
Assessing student’s comprehension is extremely important and the main reason
for this lesson. When students truly comprehend, they are thinking more deeply about
texts, focusing on what is important in the reading, retaining and applying information
from the text in a new setting, changing or broadening their thinking because of the text,
or even changing how they are thinking about the content of the text. The student’s will
complete a ‘story map’ while I am reading the book aloud to them. This story map will
enable students to relate story events and to perceive structure in literary selections. By
sharing personal interpretations of stories through illustrations, students increase their
understanding and appreciation of selections. The story map will enhance students’
interpretive abilities by enabling them to visualize story characters, events and settings. It
also allows students to organize and sequence main events. My main assessment will be
the story maps. After I read the book and all of the story maps are filled out, we will
engage in a post-discussion to answer the pre-reading questions.
Pre-reading Questions:
"What clues does the title give me about the story?"
"Is this a real or imaginary story?"
"Why am I reading this?"
"What do I already know about superheroes?"
"What predictions can I make?"
During Reading
Fill out story Map
Post-reading Discussion
Go back and answer questions from the pre-reading assessment
E. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING: 4.5, 4.6, 4.7
F. MATERIALS NEEDED
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Buehner, C. (2007) Superdog: The Heart of a Hero. Scholastic Press. (I will
provide)
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Pre-reading Questions Worksheet (I will provide)
Story Map (I will provide)
G. PROCEDURE
Since this lesson is being taught in a ‘station,’ the allotted time will be twenty
minutes. I will start the mini lesson by telling the student’s we are going to have a readaloud. I will pass out the “pre-reading questions sheet” and show students the book cover
and the pages of the book. From my introduction to the book, we will quietly discuss and
students will answer their pre-reading questions to the best of their ability in complete
sentences. We will then talk about what we think the book will be about, and I will pass
out the story map worksheets.
For the next ten minutes, I will read the book aloud, modeling good fluency and
reading strategies for the students. As I read, students will fill out the story map while
listening to the story. Reading the book and filling out the story map will take about ten
minutes of the twenty minute station. I will make sure to ask questions during the reading
and point out the illustrations. Students will have remarks and comments on certain
pictures and I will ask them their thoughts on the setting.
After I read the book aloud, we will review our story map to make sure our
comprehension level was accurate. Then, we will engage in a post-reading discussion and
go back to the pre-reading questions to address them again and make the necessary
changes. I will conclude the lesson by talking to students about the importance of story
mapping and comprehension of text.
H. DIFFERENTIATION
For students that struggle to complete the story map during the read aloud, I will
go over everyone’s thoughts and the different aspects of the story after reading. This way,
everyone can be on the same comprehension level. For students who are more artistically
oriented, I will allow them to draw pictures on what happens in the story. If students feel
more comfortable drawing pictures rather than writing, they will be given that
opportunity. For students who finish the story map and reviewing the pre-reading
questions early, I will have them draw a picture of their favorite part of the story on the
back of the story map.
I. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
The main thing that may go wrong in this lesson is running out of time. I have it
split up into timed increments so this does not occur. However, during the read aloud,
students may ask a lot of questions so this may take extra time. Another thing that could
go wrong is if there is disruption while I am reading aloud such as a fire drill or students
loudly entering the classroom. If this occurs, I will pause my reading and continue when
the disruption stops.
Name: ____________________
Date: ____________
Pre-Reading Questions
"What clues does the title give me about the story?"
"Is this a real or imaginary story?"
"Why am I reading this?"
"What do I already know about___?"
"What predictions can I make?"
Name: _______________________
Date: _________
Story Map
Who or what is it about?
Characters:
__________________________
________________________
Topic:
_________________________
What is the setting?
Time:____________________
Place:_____________________
__________________________
_______________________
What is the genre? ______________
Title: ___________________________________________
What happens in the story?
Beginning:
___________________________
_________________________
Middle:
___________________________
_________________________
End:
___________________________
_________________________
Is there a main problem?
Explain:
___________________________
___________________________
________________________
How is it solved? :
___________________________
___________________________
________________________
Lesson Reflection
For this lesson plan, I chose the book “Superdog: The Heart of a Hero,” because I knew it
would be entertaining for the students. I loved reading this book in our class so I thought it was a
good fit for fourth graders. This comprehension lesson was one of the best lessons I have taught
in my practicum classroom this year—the students were so engaged! I taught this lesson in
groups of 5 or 6 students as they went through a series of stations. I really enjoyed teaching this
lesson because it was something different. Since the fourth grade is departmentalized, my teacher
teaches all reading. Every day that I am there for practicum I work with groups for
comprehension and they always read out of a textbook and answer questions. This activity just
seems mundane and does not interest the students. They really loved that we got to do something
fun and talk about the book before and after the reading. This method of teaching comprehension
was a lot more effective, in my opinion.
For my pre-reading activity, I decided to ask the students a set of pre-reading questions. I
showed the students the book and read the title to them then asked them these questions as a
group. This activity set a purpose for the reading because it got the students to brainstorm what
they think the book is about. They were able to make predictions about the book based on the
name and the pictures. This sparked curiosity with the students! The students were able to start
thinking about what would happen in the book and why we would read a book like this.
While I was reading, I had the students fill out the story map to the best of their ability. I
let them know that they should just fill it out as they go and recognize the components of the
story map. The students were engaged and filled out most of the story map as I read. The
students thought the story map was interesting because it kept them on track during the read
aloud. A story map is definitely a “during reading” exercise that I plan to use again in my future
classroom. There are many ways you can make the story map for the students to be engaged
while reading. If the students did not finish a part of the story map we went through to review it
after the book was read. This helped us spark discussion after the book was finished. For my
post-reading activity, we went back to the pre-reading questions and changed the answers based
on what we knew after reading the book. A lot of the students could not guess what the point of
the story would be or what would happen so this post-reading activity proved to be helpful.
If I were to teach this exact lesson again, I would like to try the read-aloud to the entire
class. My cooperating teacher prefers doing reading through various stations so we usually do
that. However, I would like to try doing it with the entire class to see the difference. I think that
doing it with 20 students rather than 5 or 6 would create a different discussion. Doing this in
small groups allowed all of the students to talk and voice their opinion, so it was beneficial. Once
I did it with the entire class, I would decide which method of teaching I like better and probably
stick to that way. Something I would add to this activity is to have the students engage in a
writing activity to follow the read aloud and discussion. They could write their own story about
who their superhero is and make a craft of some sort representing them. This way, students could
use their creativity and what they learned in the book about superheroes to make their own
decision.
There are many ways that I plan to implement comprehension into my classroom—it is
something that needs to be taught in all subjects. As comprehension is extremely important, it
can be taught in a variety of contexts or subjects. We read in each and every subject so there is
always room to practice comprehension with your students. In my practicum classroom the
teacher give out comprehension worksheets that usually have a poem or story passage and then
asks them to answer questions on the worksheet. Personally, I do not like this method. The
students get bored and are not engaged—they are just looking for answers and not understanding
the true meaning of he text. I would like to teach comprehension through games and fun ways
such as story maps or integrating art projects into the lesson. Overall, I would need to assess my
students where their reading comprehension levels are and then group them based on the results.
I could change my pre and post reading activities with each group based on the level of
comprehension the students are at. If I cater to the certain needs of each group, they will receive
more attention and most likely improve more than they would if I did it with a class as a whole.
Overall, I would love to teach this lesson in m future class—the book is now a favorite of mine,
and one that I need to add to my library!